Americans aren’t the only ones exasperated with the quality of the electoral debate in the United States.
For El Tiempo of Colombia, Sergio Munoz Bata writes in part:
“Between insulting statements and condemnations that border on slander, recent electoral activity by the U.S. presidential candidates has focused on their proposals for energy policy. And while the scandalous part is the repeated changes in positions and posturing of the two candidates, what is most regrettable is the populist spirit of their electoral proposals.”
“Last week he announced that he now supports the limited extraction of oil in areas along the U.S. coast until now preserved from exploitation. Until this latest amendment, Obama had opposed this type of oil extraction, arguing that coastal drilling entails a risk to the environment so great that the nation could not allow it.”
In regard to McCain, he says in part:
“McCain, meanwhile, has not distinguished himself by his consistency. The Arizona senator has also had radical change in his stance on the subject of increasing coastal drilling. In fact during the primary elections of 2000, McCain transformed himself into the best advocate of the environmental cause, emphasizing that that the existing ban on coastal drilling should be extended … In recent weeks McCain has taken up the desperate cause of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, in a very visible campaign to discredit Congress and require it to permit oil exploration off the coast.”
By Sergio Muñoz Bata
Translated By Barbara Howe
August 5, 2008
Colombia – El Tiempo – Original Article (Spanish)
Between insulting statements and condemnations that border on slander, recent electoral activity by the U.S. presidential candidates has focused on their proposals for energy policy. And while the scandalous part is the repeated changes in positions and posturing of the two candidates, what is most regrettable is the populist spirit of their electoral proposals.
This Monday, for example, Barack Obama surprised the public by contradicting his earlier statements that he favors resorting to oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserves to try and lower gas prices.
And that wasn’t the only occasion in which Obama changed his cloak. Last week he announced that he now supports the limited extraction of oil in areas along the U.S. coast until now preserved from exploitation. Until this latest amendment, Obama had opposed this type of oil extraction, arguing that coastal drilling entails a risk to the environment so great that the nation could not allow it.
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